… India is still poor and lags behind in infrastructure construction, but its society is highly supportive of developing nuclear power and the West chooses to overlook India’s disregard of nuclear and missile control treaties. The West remains silent on the fact that India’s military spending increased by 17 percent in 2012 and the country has again become the largest weapons importer in the world ….

China understands the Indian desire to catch up with China. China, as the most appropriate strategic target for India, is willing to take India as a peaceful competitor.

The cited 17% growth in 2012 is considerably higher than China’s own planned increase of 11.2%, but some analysts believe that the Chinese defence budget as a whole is understated by around a third. The stated “normal” ICBM range of 8,000 km, on the other hand, appears exaggerated for rhetorical effect: others set the bar at a more modest 5,500 km, still just outside the Agni-V’s reach. But The Diplomat suggested that, in any case, Indian ambitions of “true” ICBM ownership were less clear-cut than the Global Times made out.

There’s a something of a debate in India … on whether the country should seek to enhance the Agni-V to extend its range past the largely symbolic 5,500 kilometer marker. Former President APJ Kalam, who’s often referred to as the “Missile Man of India” for the pivotal role he played in developing New Delhi’s ballistic missiles as an aerospace engineer at DRDO, has suggested he wouldn’t be in favor of doing so.

“An ICBM with 5,000-km range was enough as the potential enemies were well within this range,” Kalam told a group of university students last November. When a student asked him if an ICBM with a longer range should be developed, Kalam simply replied that India didn’t face threats from the transatlantic community, The Tribune reported.